Bank Makes River Valley Market Move

First Arkansas Valley Bank of Russellville applied with the Arkansas State Bank Department on Feb. 21 to open a location in Fort Smith.

If approved, the bank will be the 42nd unique bank in the six-county market (Benton, Carroll, Crawford, Madison, Sebastian and Washington). As of June 30, there were already 39 banks in the market competing for $9.18 billion in deposits.

FAVB was operated by Russellville Bancshares, which helped Liberty Bancshares of Jonesboro purchase Arkansas State Bank of Siloam Springs in 2004 (now re-branded as Liberty Bank of Arkansas). Liberty paid $23.7 million for an 80 percent stake in ASB, while Russellville Bancshares acquired 20 percent for $6 million.

In the fall of 2005, Liberty bought out Russellville’s ASB shares and collapsed the Siloam Springs charter into Jonesboro’s charter.

Then, at the end of 2005, Liberty Bancshares purchased Russellville Bancshares for an undisclosed amount, so First Arkansas Valley is now a cousin of Liberty Bank.

FAVB has 13 offices in five counties (Conway, Johnson, Pope, White and Yell). As of Sept. 30, the bank had assets of $540.2 million, up from $494.3 million a year earlier, and it had $393.6 million in deposits.

Howard Hamilton, Northwest Arkansas regional president of Liberty, said the holding company closed the year with just over $2 billion in assets.